Balthus, born Balthasar Klossowski, in 1908, was sixty-two when we met, some forty years ago. I had never known a great artist, and he looked the part, especially in paint-splattered trousers and a ...

The great modern artists are mystics. They forge a personal relationship with the main currents of artistic tradition. They transform generally agreed-upon ideas into private ideas, subjecting the ...

The French painter Balthus—best known for his portraits of young girls oozing with sexual innuendo—is an artist that elicits radical responses: some love him for his long-lasting talent and staunch ...

The Mountain, the twelve-foot-wide painting by Balthus in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one of the most disquieting visions of summer ever committed to canvas, a pastoral ...

The paintings of the Polish-French artist known as Balthus “speak directly to the rotten part of the heart,” said Christian Viveros-Fauné in The Village Voice. Visitors to the Met get only a coy, ...

He may have been born at the dawn of the last century, but Balthasar Klossowski knew a secret of our time: put a cat in everything. On display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through January 12, ...

Like everyone else who has ever commented on his art, Balthus (1908-2001) returns repeatedly in his memoir to the question of his work's erotic content. A self-taught painter who considered Piero ...

If current trends continue, in just a few years all of contemporary culture will be nothing but an unending stream of cat pictures. Newspapers desperate to survive will publish only adorable kitten ...

Balthus: The Last Studies at Gagosian Gallery offers a kind of endnote to Balthus: Cats and Girls — Paintings and Provocations, the exhibition a couple of blocks away at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ...

When London’s Tate gallery was preparing a retrospective of Balthus’ works in 1968, organizers wanted to write a tribute to the artist and asked for his input. “Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is ...

Two years ago, a provocative painting by Balthus stirred up a controversy that extended well beyond the art world. Now, a painting from the same series is expected to sell for as much as $18 million ...